


The Great Scot

by deejay



Category: Miracles (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-17
Updated: 2010-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:44:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deejay/pseuds/deejay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Beta thanx: Sandy H.</p></blockquote>





	The Great Scot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EmmaDeMarais](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaDeMarais/gifts).



Alva Keel. Even when allegedly coherent, Paul Callan could rarely fathom what the hell the man was talking about.

Yet, here he found himself, sitting on his sodden heels in a patch of half-frozen, sleet-drenched churchyard, kneeling over Alva and trying to keep him from moving too much, which could cause possible further injury. He was also attempting, with a fair amount of concern, to decipher the rambling words that fell with little pause from Alva's bruised and bloodied mouth.

Scant minutes prior to this, in its last act of kinetic defiance, a dying minor demonic entity had managed to hurl Keel head first through the solid oaken front door of a recently abandoned and boarded-up church in some one-stoplight town in rural Western New Jersey. While Paul's own skull had generally borne the brunt of most of the pair's spectral attacks in the line of duty, this time had been Alva's turn. Considering the slowly dilating pupils, and nonstop and somewhat slurred speech, Paul was reasonably certain that, at the very least, a mild concussion had to be involved somehow.

As well, there were two new immediate issues for Paul to deal with: having to explain to the en route Sheriff's department and ambulance crews exactly how Alva had been propelled through the door to land on the ground a good ten feet past the small church's front porch, and whether it was entirely fair of him to take advantage of Alva's current dazed state by listening too closely as the man babbled otherwise nonsensical details of his earlier life.

"...and I told Barry that he would need to bring the extra power cords, but did he? No. No, of course not. He most certainly did not. He would always forget them, every single time.... Isn't that right?"

"I have no idea who Barry is," Paul replied evenly. It wouldn't help to convey, in voice or manner, his near-frantic worry about Alva, so he took a few deep breaths of chilly air to keep himself steady.

"Electric bass guitar player...." Alva droned on. "Quite an excellent one, too. But forgetful. He was always forgetting things. That time with the cherries ... they were extremely important, you know ... Her Royal Highness never spoke to me again after that, and I was banned from Exeter forever.... Sometimes, he would leave his baggage on the side of the road and drive off without us ... and then there was another time when he forgot and left the kettle on all night and it damned near burnt down his flat...."

"He sounds charming." Having given up his own wool coat to cover over Alva in an attempt to keep him warm, Paul shivered in the brisk, late-autumn breeze that swept over them and fervently stared off in the direction of the road where help was soon, he silently prayed, to arrive.

"Cambridge ... it was back in Cambridge ... in England ... in university," Keel prattled on. "We had a rock band on the side together, Barry and I ... called ourselves 'The Great Scots!'...."

Paul chuckled softly. 'The Great Scots!', indeed.

"...and our mate Stuart was on guitar, while Tavish was on drums.... I played keyboards...."

"I didn't know you could play." Paul allowed himself a smidgen of personal pride that he could manage to sound so entirely ordinary, given the circumstances.

"Neither did I.... Uhh ... Paul...? It's very ... very cold. Why is my back so cold?"

"Because you're lying in an icy puddle of mud," Paul explained calmly, with growing relief that Alva seemed to be on the verge of recovering enough of his senses to make his way at least a little closer to reality.

"Oh ... I am? In mud?"

"Yes. You actually broke the ice when you landed. How does the top of your head feel?"

Alva blinked slowly. "Numb.... My ears are ringing ... and I think I bit the side of my tongue."

"Regardless, your tongue still seems to be working just fine," Paul murmured, fighting back a smirk.

"Could well be concussed, though ... mustn't doze off ... so, I should ... I need to keep talking ... right?"

Paul wiped fresh droplets of blood from Alva's lips with the cuff of his shirt sleeve. "Sure, go ahead ... there's no power in the universe strong enough to stop you, anyway...." He gently bunched the coat's collar tighter around Alva's neck for added warmth. "Help's coming. They will be here any minute. You'll be okay."

"Okay...? Yes ... okay," Alva sighed, closing his eyes against the glare of the setting sun. "I should make certain that it's well and truly gone.... Do the ritual again, just in case...."

"You don't need to do that. It's just us here - "

"Where was I...? Ahh ... I'll start back a tad ... et ... et coram se habens ... obsessum ligatum - "

Paul shook his head. "Ritual time is over, Keel ... it's gone, you won ... you don't need to - "

"... si sit periculum, eum ... eum ... wait, I'm messing it up ... se et ... yes ... se et astantes communiat signo crucis ... Crucis? It's crucis, correct...?"

"Hey, seriously, hold up. It's defeated; it's gone for good," Paul quietly stressed. "I saw it dissipate into nothing about the same time you broke down the door ... with your head."

"Ahh...? So ... like Elvis ... it left the building, then?"

Paul smiled patiently. "Yeah, it did.... Pastor Martha will be relieved to finally get to open up her old church again."

"The poor, pitiful, wretched thing," Alva muttered darkly. "Never stood a chance against me...."

"...Pastor Martha...?" She was such a sweet woman, Paul thought, why would Alva - ?

"Nooooo ... that pathetically inept little demon. Whatever its name was.... I sent it straight into oblivion, where it belongs," Alva growled softly. "Taking over and bullying a church like that ... the very nerve...."

"Ohh, I see.... You did a great job, getting rid of it ... I suppose," Paul shrugged slightly.

"You suppose? I kicked its Mesopotamian ass."

Given Keel's considerable expertise in their field, a certain amount of swagger was often to be expected where demon slaying was concerned, nevertheless Paul smothered a laugh at the unexpected language. "Well, all except ... maybe ... for the part at the end where you were tossed through the air like a rag doll ... landing us both out here, freezing in the mud."

Alva's eyes opened to slits. "You're cold? Why aren't you wearing your coat? It's freezing out here."

"Because I'm keeping you warm with it. You need it a whole lot more than I do right now."

"This is your coat? But ... oh, dear ... it's all muddy ... bloody, too, I'm afraid.... I'm sorry, Paul."

"That's okay, you can pick up the dry cleaning bill."

Keel grimaced. "If I can afford to after paying for that ambulance you've called...."

"A necessary, irrefutable expense," Paul nodded. "Besides, the insurance should cover everything." Over the sound of the wind, he could begin to make out approaching sirens, which was closely followed by the most welcome sight of a line of emergency vehicles turning off the country highway onto the dirt road leading to the church grounds.

Alva twitched nervously. "Have you thought yet of... of how to explain to them ... of why ... of what ... of how I wound up.... How is the door, anyway?"

"Open. Hanging by one hinge. Don't worry, I'm considering all explanatory options. I'll come up with something, you know I always do," Paul assured him. "Meantime, before they pull up over here, I have one quick question for you...."

"Hmm? Yes?"

"What was so important about the cherries?"

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Beta thanx: Sandy H.


End file.
